Operation outside your body

Thursday 19 December 2002 00:00 BST

Surgeons can now perform operations out of the body

Surgeons have performed the world's first out-of-body operation, removing a patient's liver to give it radiotherapy before re-implanting it. The technique could beat hard-to-treat cancers in organs such as the lungs or the pancreas.

A year after the 21-hour operation, the 48-year-old patient is alive and well. His liver is functioning normally and shows no signs of tumours.

The surgery was carried out by a team of Italian doctors who described their work in New Scientist magazine yesterday. 'By explanting the organ we could give a high and uniform dose to all the liver which is impossible to obtain inside the body without serious risk to the patient,' said Tazio Pinelli, one of the team. However, doctors warned the operation would be reserved for the worst cases and could only be carried out while a patient was strong enough to survive such a massive procedure.